Balloon Lament: A Cautionary Tale

I received a green balloon when I got off my braces.  This magic balloon was filled with the most amazing helium.  It didn't lose air for the longest time.  My girls really liked it.  Jules asked if she could have it and I said sure.  What do I care about balloons?  Mia then put a cute face on it.  They named him "Greeny" because he was green.  Makes sense.  The whole thing remembered me of the Meep episode of Phineas and Ferb.

I didn't know how important Greeny would become to the family.  The girls played with him as if he was the long lost brother they never had.  Yesterday Mia came to me very concerned.  Greeny was getting smaller and losing some air.  He was only floating half as high. It was a hard reality for her to face.  Sometimes balloons lose their float.

She asked me how to get him high again.  I mentioned maybe if he was in a warm place.  She got a few ideas of what to do.  I found Greeny near the vent...

I found him close to the Christmas tree...

But my favorite was wrapped in my new electric throw...

After a few different attempts she then asked if she could go to Zurcher's and get a new balloon for New Year's.

Sure!  Why not?  It's only a balloon right?  It's not like I'm replacing a pet or something.

I took both my girls over there today and had them each pick out 2 balloons:

• Julia naturally picked a pink one and purple one now named Pinky and Pearl.
• Mia picked an orange one and blue one now named Tangy and Smiley.

What a cheap date!  It was better than Disneyland!  4 bucks down.  Easy Peesy!

The first thing both of them did when they got their balloons home was taking my awesome Magnum Sharpie and drawing cute faces on them.

I helped Julia with hers, because Mia refused to put eyelashes on the smiley-faces.

Mia finished with Tangy and placed a cute smirk on his face.  Then she worked on Smiley.  She drew a very big grin on his face, hence the name "Smiley."  I was in my bedroom when I heard the "POP!"

Instant crying!  Mia was hysterical.  Poor Smiley hit a rough edge on the ceiling and popped without me even getting the chance to see his smile.

Life lesson learned:

Mia and Tangy after their tragic lose.

1. Prepare your children now for Balloon accidents.  Balloons don't last forever.
2. Buying Balloons is like adopting a child.
3. Be careful when putting smiley-faces on balloons.  You make them cute and then they have a personality.  Soon they are sitting at the dinner table with you and begging you for money.
4. A balloon can be a kids' best friend, just ask Doofenshmirtz and his best friend "Balloony." 
5. Have smooth ceilings.

Tape the Season!

For anyone that received my Christmas card probably laughed when I said my Mia tapes everything.  Yes.  She has a serious taping problem.  She's a Tape-holic!

Tape is Magic!  Tape can do everything.  It can fix cocoa mugs.  It's good for wall decorations... and broken zippers... and restaurant signs.... and taping the cat's legs together.  Tape is an amazing invention.

This last week I have been busy with my writing and I let me girls have the freedom of a messy room and wearing jammies all day.  What I neglected to do was put away the tape.

I walked into my daughter's bedroom to find my girls covered in stripes.

You know the book where the girl doesn't like veggies and she turned all striped.  That is basically what I saw.  My girls (Mia being the mastermind) had stripped to skivvies, taken scotch tape and wrapped it around their arms and legs.  Then had taken markers and colored the tape best they could, which was not that good, since the right side was colored with the left hand.  They had also found the Christmas bows and placed them on their body.

Mia stood up to show off her new skin.

Mia: "Hey Mom!"

Me: "What in the world...?

Jules:  "It was Mia's idea."

Me: "I can tell that."

Mia: "Look Mom!  I'm a Christmas Prezzie!"

Me:  "Good thing.  Santa will be very glad, since he won't need to stop here for Christmas."

Jules, my 5 yr old, quickly started ripping off the tape and went to the bathroom to wash off her body, continually saying it was Mia's idea.

Mia just looked at me and said, "It's okay Mom.  He doesn't have to wrap my present.  Santa will appreciate my creativity."

Remember the Magic of Santa

Parents lose the magic of what it is like to be a kid; to not understand all the rules, like how gravity keeps us on the ground or where wishes go when you blow dandelions.

I think it is the same with Santa Claus. 

When I was 5 my mother and I set out tiny little furniture next to a tree we called the Fairy Tree.  I made a tiny little bed out of tissue with a cottonball pillow.  We placed windchimes on a branch, which my mother callled fairy bells - when they chimed that meant a fairy was near.  This was magic my mother taught me - my mother, a grown woman who knew how gravity worked and how dandelions reproduce in the yard.  She is the one who taught me to believe in magic.  She is responsible for leading my imagination down its artistic path.

Santa is not much different.  Just take away the comercialism of Christmas and remember the sweet magic of believing in the unbelievable.  Let your children dream, imagine, and believe, so when your children have children the magic of Christmas will be there.

Just ask the question... Do you BELIEVE?

More Adventures in Awesomeness!!

News! News! News! 

It's never a boring time with me.  There is always something crazy happening in my life.  Besides stuffing myself like a Turkey Dinner this holiday, I also did something a little insane.

What could it be??? you ask....

Let's take some questions from the audience...

• Did you win the lottery?  sadly no, but I feel like I did.
• Did you get your braces off?  - I WISH.  My news isn't that cool, but on that note, they will come off in DECEMBER! Santa is delivering my Christmas wish a little early.
• Did you finally get that gum out of the carpet?  Nope, but better than that - I REPLACED IT!

Have you given up yet??  No???

• Did medical science decide to freeze my embryos for future generations to bask in the presence of awesome me?  Umm... no, but that would be cool.  And on that other note, no I'm not pregnant, but thank you for thinking that I could.
• Did you get your midnight tickets for THE HOBBIT?  OF COURSE!! And my shirts are hot and ready to feel the magic, but that's not it, though it's cool too.

Oh.... did you give up? Fine, I will tell you.

I decided to try and get my book published and guess what?  It worked.  I am now a contracted author with Xchyler Pubishing. (it's pronounced Skyler, for those of you who are thinking about some crazy baby name spellings).  I'm just getting started, but they are super excited to have me with them.

Next you'll see my very own theme park in Florida.  Cool huh?

If you have read my story and know the genre, just take a look at the website and you'll know my book is a perfect fit. http://xchylerpublishing.com/

Wish me luck!!!

Sitting With Dinosaurs

So called "Cute" party people.

I thought it would be an amazing idea to take my daughter for her ninth birthday to our bland new Natural History Museum.  This was a very appealing idea to my nerdy daughter and also my equally nerdy geologist husband.  We took a few of her friends, most of them very cute and not as nerdy, to this amazing museum.

The museum is designed in a rather tricky fashion - if you take the elevator to the top you can walk down the exhibits and see about EVERYTHING!

Watching all the heathen children scamper about in all the kid-friendly exhibits was fun and exhausting, but mostly fun.  Finally when you are walking down to the bottom floor you reach THE DINOSAURS!

Please note the tall Dinosaur at the end of the picture that stretches its neck high to the ceiling, "The Apatosaurus."

As we reached near the bottom I was rather distracted by a glass floor showing the excavation site of the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry.  

My sister minutes before the incident.  Notice the large leg in the back?

As I looked closely at the floor I lost my footing and stumbled backward.  If you notice the tall railing in the back, my hand grabbed it thinking I had a sure post behind me - however, what I had was a small tripping fence that I fell flatly over INTO THE EXHIBIT!  I was sitting bottoms down inbetween the Allosaurus and the gigantic Apatosaurus.  I looked over just to see the tall monster swaying by my human intrution.

I added this picture of"Breaking Dancing Alexa" as an illustration of the floor, the railing and the small fencing holding in the dinosaurs.

And then it dawned on me... I need to get out of here!  If this dinosaur topples I AM GOING TO BE ON THE NEWS!  This was trouble. 

I look over, no one else in the entire group saw me fall.  A few of the girls saw me.  "What are you doing in there?" one asked.  Good question.  I quickly tried to slide out undetected, but it was not as easy as falling in.  The dinosaurs were still moving and I thought every vibration might create the great extinction of the dinosaurs, from the NHMU.  But without help, I managed to get out of there without much humiliation from the others. I only had the long bruise across my butt to prove my personal assault on the extinction of the fossil giants - which I will NOT post on this blog... but trust me, it's there.